Re: framed texts for boxing stuff

["Maurice Diamantini (dom)" <mdiam@free.fr>]

Le 10 janv. 06 à 00:01, Hans Hagen a écrit :

> Maurice Diamantini (dom) wrote:
>
>> As the "LaTeX++" concurrent package designer, you should read  
>> some  page of the
>> LaTeX reference documentation "A document Preparation System"
>> It is little book  (272 pages with the index !) and cover the core  
>> of  the
>> package.
>> Page 103 to 110 are related to boxes, and is what is missing in  
>> context.
>
> hm, i prefer to start from user demands and personal needs; we used  
> latex for
> a very short time and i don't remember mini pages -)

Ok, but what I mean is the need of such a documentation on the  
ConTeXt core, not
reimplementing LaTeX in ConTeXt !


>> I'm not sure that ConTeXt \framed command is able to reproduce
>> the parbox behavior (position a framed box relatively to its  
>> internal  top
>> or bottom line and the outside baseline)
>
> i think we can safely assume that all these things are available  
> somehow
> (supp-box.tex implements a lot of box types)

I saw this source file thanks to the following URL:
    http://source.contextgarden.net/supp-box.tex
There is very much interesting macro, but I see some
    %D \macros
    %D   {strutdp,strutht,strutwd}
    %D ...
Does it mean that an automatic generated documentation is available  
somewhere
on the web?
Or is it mondatoryto browse the source for using these command.


> normally \framed can do what's needed, so in your case, if you can  
> make
> clear what you want to achieve i'm sure that someone on this list can
> provide the answer

>> ... So what is the current reference documentation about framed
>>   - Context the manual (page 206) ?
>>   - ConTeXt an excursion (page 45) ?
>
> the manual as well as examples inside the core-ful.tex file

I haven"t been able to find this file!
core-fil.tex exists but doesn't seem to be about using boxes!


> the most important properties of framed are
>
> - offset (none,overlay, dimension)
> - align (all kind of combinations)
> - width/height (dimension or keyword)
> - strut (yes|no)
>
> just play a bit with it and you'll see the picture

Thank you for these informations, I reread the (box related) reference
manual, and better understand the thing!

>> ...
>> I think there has to be two pairs of informations to position a
>> box (i.e. a "cell" text):
>> - how is the box is positioned relatively to its environment (the   
>> location=
>>   keyword I think),
>
> no, location is limited to a few options; you can use macros
> like \offset[...]{} or other box positioning macros; layers
> are also an option

Although I guess what it mean, I didn't found the \offset command
doc neither. I suppose it has numerous
interesting options (on http://texshow.contextgarden.net/)?


>> - inside the box : everywhere. that implies two reals numbers
>>   between 0.0 and 1.0 (perhaps wider?)
>
> what are those numbers representing?

It could just be a way to specify arbitrary position between
left (0.0) and right (1.0) or between bottom (0.0) ant top (1.0)
But the more important whould be a (uptodate) reference documentation  
about
the already existing commands.

>>   (but the TeX command \raise0.5ex could do that)
>
> indeed, \raise and \lower and cousins can come in handy

Yes, I always forget TeX command! thank you very much !

> (what do you use those minipages for?)
These are just (v?)boxes which can contain several paragraphs
and theyre own footnotes. Some options can be use to position
theyre internal (top or bottom) line relatively to the external
base line.

No need for now, I only used them in LaTeX for building some boxing
construction. But in context I used vboxex into hboxes (because I
didn't kwox enough about standard \framed command)

In fact, ConTeXt already contains all the needed stuffs, and only
some centralised documentation for using them is missing!

I'm waiting for the future ConTeXt book ;-)

-- Maurice

PS.
Also the ConTeXt wiki becomme more and more rich in information!
Thank you very much for all that

!